Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Guillermo Del Toro Roundtable #4: The Devil's Backbone

Individual Reviews are useful, but criticism is a dialogue,
not a monologue. I’m Max O’Connell of The Film Temple, he’s Loren Greenblatt of
Screen Vistas, and we’ve got some things to say in the Guillermo Del Toro
Roundtable.

Max’s Grade: 89/A-

Loren’s Grade: A
(he doesn’t use the same idiotic 100-point system I use)

Max
O’Connell: Alright, we
just finished The Devil’s Backbone, Guillermo Del Toro’s follow-up to Mimic
that is, if I may be so bold, a little bit better.

Loren
Greenblatt: Just barely
a colossal improvement that makes it hard to believe he ever directed Mimic at
all.

MO:The Devil’s Backbone is a ghost
story and fractured fairytale of sorts that came out in 2001. It was a moderate
commercial success, a major critical success that got him a lot of respect, and
it’s getting more attention now in the years since Pan’s Labyrinth because,
in many regards, it’s a companion piece.

LG: They share a lot of things in common:
they both deal with the Spanish Civil War, they both center on children dealing
with the invasion of both adult, human evil and supernatural elements. Del Toro
has said that this is the brother film to Pan’s Labyrinth’s sister film.
The plot concerns a young boy named Carlos, played wonderfully by Fernando
Tielve, who is sent to an orphanage for sons of the men who fought against
Franco’s regime. The orphanage is a spooky place. For starters, there's rumors
of a ghost running around. Then there's the small matter of the unexploded bomb
in the middle of the courtyard. It’s been diffused, but it’s a powerful symbol
of the realities of war and violence that are encroaching upon childhood. As
he’s shown around, it feels much like we’re entering a prison film: he’s given
a bar of soap to keep, he’s assigned a numbered bed, he’s warned not to try to
run away, and he starts to form a bit of a friendship with the other kids that
reminded me a bit of the Morgan Freeman-Tim Robbins friendship in The
Shawshank Redemption.

MO: In that he has to earn their respect
first. The prison parallel is interesting in that this case they’re not held by
a cruel group of people, but by good-natured (if flawed) people that have to
make very hard decisions in order to keep the kids alive. Federico Luppi
(previously the star of Cronos) is Dr. Cesares, who has to be the kind
but very pragmatic and stern mentor to the children. The head of the orphanage,
Carmen (Marisa Paredes) has to limit what they can eat at any given time in
order to guarantee that they’ll have enough.

LG: She’s also dealt with the realities of
war- she lost a leg and has to wear a prosthetic, which really looks like something
that Del Toro would design (though we have no clue what prosthetics looked like
at this point in time). This is a film where Del Toro really comes into his own
as a visual stylist. Cronos was done as well as it could be done on its
budget, but this feels like he has just the right amount of money to make
something special.

MO: We noticed while we watched it that the
current DVD edition doesn't have the greatest transfer - we’re waiting for the
Criterion blu-ray that's coming out the end of next month - but even so it the
film has a wonderful soft look to everything that makes it…not nostalgic,
necessarily, but more romantic. Cinematographer Guillermo Navarro did a
wonderful job here.

LG: The two really developed the two-color
lighting techniques that they've become known for. He’s found his own color
palette outside of his Argento influences. We’re going to see this as a
standard lighting technique for Del Toro in almost all of his films from here
on out.

MO: You mentioned that this film has your favorite
image in any of Del Toro’s films.

LG: The last shot. It’s a ridiculously
simple image, of people walking away framed in a doorway, and then there’s a
silhouette. It's hard to explain why it works without spoiling it but it's a
wonderful, mysterious image that points to the mysterious nature of death.

MO: Del Toro’s also always been in debt to
Cronenberg with the body-horror thing, and that’s here, but in a more Del
Toro-esque way than before. It’s much more subtle. The title refers to children
suffering from spina bifida (a presumably fatal birth defect where the spine is
exposed) and the doctor keeps a handful of dead fetuses suffering from this in
jars as a way to gain funds. He sells the rum that they pickle them in as
“limbo water,” a cure for impotence, among other things. It’s a superstition
based out of body horror that can be frightening, but what’s nice is that it’s
essentially benign. It’s a very nice symbol for what’s at the heart of the
orphanage: a g-g-g-ghost!

LG: The ghost of a child who used to be an
orphan there. As someone who’s usually not scared of ghost movies in general
(ghosts don’t really do anything), I have to say thatthis ghost is terrifying, haunting, and
beautiful, all at the same time. There’s a sort of benign quality to him right
away- he’s frightening to look at, but he’s glimpsed very casually. We really
don’t know quite what to make of him at first. There’s a wonderful mystery,
especially since we know there are kids who have gone missing from the
orphanage. One of the great things about the film is that it has a very
fairytale-like feel to it. Part of that comes from rhyming imagery. The
beginning and ending of the film have nearly identical images with different
narration, the limbo water for the babies mirrors the fate of one ofthe children who dies in an amber-lit pool.

MO: The doctor even makes reference in his
narration to a ghost being like an insect stuck in amber. It’s a very arresting
image. Another thing he’s always been in debt to are the classic horror
filmmakers like James Whale and Hitchcock. Some of the scariest moments here
are entirely because of the way Del Toro has framed the shot - the main
character’s head is in a very particular position, and as soon as he moves, the
ghost is revealed. It’s very classical, often playing with tropes that have
been around since the 1930s, but when combined with Del Toro’s more assured
visual sense it feels striking and new.

LG: It's strange, because even though that's
a pretty standard shot, it never feels like he’s going for cheap scares.
Earlier this year I saw the Del Toro-produced film Mama, which is almost
all loud noises and shots designed to startle instead of scare. There’s such a
better sense of dread and atmosphere in this thing.

MO: Part of that comes from something that’s
going to recur in Pan’s Labyrinth: the true villain isn’t a supernatural
monster, but rather a very human monster by the name of Jacinto, played very
well by Eduardo Noriega.

LG: Apparently a lot of people were very
skeptical of Noriega’s casting. He was more famous in Spain for his telenovelas
than anything else, but he’s terrifying here.

MO: Oh, he’s a complete bastard. They do
find ways to make him somewhat empathetic- we feel his humanity because he’s a
truly pathetic human being. He was an orphan, like most of the characters in
the film, and the principal describes him as the saddest orphan there was
because he never had anyone to relate to in his 15 years there. He’s a “prince
without a kingdom- a man without warmth.” He has nothing to live for. He has a
girlfriend, Conchita (Irene Visedo), who he doesn’t seem to like very much. He
sleeps with Carmen, the head of the orphanage, because the one who truly loves
her, Dr. Cesares, is impotent, but she clearly hates herself for it and pities
him. We find some pity in ourselves, but for the most part he’s a man we love
to hate.

LG: The other thing Del Toro’s going for
here is a deconstruction for the macho stereotype that he’s never really bought
into. Jacinto is the macho guy- tough, virile, emotionally guarded and
here, all those qualities are made to be totally despicable.

MO: It also must be said that although Del
Toro doesn’t overstate it too much, the connection to the Spanish Civil
War…well, I remember when I first saw the film that I rather liked it, but felt
that the Civil War material was just window-dressing that’s happening around
the real plot, and it’s stuff that Jacinto takes advantage of. Near the end of
the film this time around, though, I thought, “No, I’m completely wrong”. This
is an almost perfect allegory for fascism (as macho and hateful as ideologies
get), as Jacinto is a man who’s willing to take advantage of everything around
him in order to gain power, or in this case, wealth, as there’s gold hidden
away in the orphanage from the rebels. It’s not as strong a parallel as in Pan’s
Labyrinth, perhaps, but it’s still quite powerful.

LG: The film is also very much about the
effect of war on children. This is the first of Del Toro's films where the
children feel like real characters. They’re all remarkable actors. They are all
very much like boys are in real life, Del Toro is never one to sugarcoat
anything, and I’m sure he related to a lot of Carlos’ bullying.

MO: Something else worth noting is how the
boys all band together by the end, but that the boys can be nasty little shits
before that.

LG: There’s this wonderful sequence where
the boys force Carlos to go out to refill a jug of water in the dead of night,
and if he’s caught, he’s going to be in a heap of trouble. He has a run-in with
the ghost, but he does it, victorious! And then the boys pull out their
slingshots as Carlos heads into the courtyard, break the jug, and now Carlos is
in trouble for being out at night and for breaking a jug.

MO: We know that none of them are going to
buy that he saw the ghost, even though they’ve talked it up for ages. And the
ghost, Santi, keeps trying to communicate with them: he keeps saying that “many
of you will die”, which can be interpreted as a threat, but it’s really a
warning that Jacinto has something terrible planned. There’s a sense of
brotherhood even after death that’s quite moving, particularly with the leader
of the boys, Jaime (Inigo Garces). And he’s an interesting character- he’s
someone who does not open up very easily, because he’s been hurt. We find out
later that it’s because he witnessed the murder of his best friend, Santi, by
Jacinto. It takes more time for him to embrace Carlos, or really any of them,
because he doesn’t want to lose another friend. There’s a scene near the end,
though, when he takes leadership, and it’s emblematic of the struggle against
Jacinto (and, by proxy, the fascists). The other boys fear Jacinto and his
cronies because “they have guns, and they’re bigger than us”, but Jaime leads
them by saying that “there’s more of us”.

LG: Now, I do want to talk about the way
Santi is presented. Del Toro isn’t shy about showing us Santi’s face, which is
interesting, because at first he’s playing the Jaws rule of “don’t show
too much too soon”, and he teases out this by showing Santi’s silhouette at
first, followed by his footprints in water (sans visible feet, of course), but
then we do see him fairly early on, and that’s important. His appearance is a
big part of the mystery of who he is and what happened to him. The look of
Santi is really influenced by J-Horror (which hadn’t quite become huge, but Del
Toro is really plugged into what’s going on in horror), but he goes beyond the
standard J-Horror creepy kid. Santi has a large wound in his forehead that
blood pours out of in a cloud, and there’s these wonderful little silver flecks
floating around him, which reminds us of the pool he died in. The story is that,
in order to help light the pool, Del Toro brought little flecks of silver in
that, by the third day, started corroding and showing up onscreen when they
shot underwater, but Del Toro liked the look of it and incorporated it into the
design. But he’s not the only ghost in the movie- as certain characters die,
the hopelessness of the kids’ situation ramps up as they’re trapped by Jacinto.

MO: And I love how Del Toro ramps up the
tension of that scene. He establishes the spatial dynamics very well- they’re
locked in a cupboard, there’s a hallway between them and another room where the
villains are trying to open up a safe where the gold might be, and the noise in
that room is drowning out their escape attempts, but they’re close enough that
too much noise could still be noticed.

LG: There’s a deus ex machina that gets them
out (the ghost of Dr. Cesares, who dies from wounds caused by an explosion
Jacinto started), but it’s one that works. In any other film, I’d be annoyed,
but there’s a mystery to this that’s wonderful.

MO: Something else that I like about the film
is the innocence of adolescent interest in sexuality.

LG: There’s a moment in the film where the
boys are trading things, and there’s a drawing of a naked woman- which is
really just a stick figure. They say that it’s anatomically correct, except
that the vagina has been drawn sideways, because the kid just doesn’t know. How
would he know?

MO: It’s funny, but kind of sweet in a way.
There’s also a lot of sweetness in Jaime’s relationship with Jacinto’s
girlfriend Conchita. He dotes on her and gives her this very plain ring- I
think it’s just a cigar band- and she takes it very happily. It’s a moment of
kindness that plays in direct contrast to the way the brutish Jacinto treats
her, and it’s a rallying point for Jaime later on after Jacinto brings the band
back to Jaime. One of my favorite shots in the film is a wide shot after
Conchita confronts Jacinto and rebukes him, and she crumples to the ground as
he stabs her. It’s a very moving moment, and when Jaime sees that Jacinto has
brought the band back, he’s ready to strike back and lead his friends against
this sadistic monster.

LG: Del Toro is very adamant that fairy
tales should be dark, brutal, and violent, and lord knows we get that. The last
thirty minutes in particular- the orphanage explodes, children die, the kind
adults die, and it makes us really want Jacinto to get what’s coming to him.
And he does. The ending isn’t triumphant, which is important, because the tone
would be wrong for what’s such a mournful film.

MO: Right. They’ve been through a lot, the
adults have had to sacrifice themselves, and there’s only five or six of the
kids left, and Jacinto gets an appropriately brutal death.

LG:Lord of the Flies style. There’s
an earlier scene where they talk about a mammoth hunt with cavemen, where the
men would use sharpened sticks. Then the kids use sticks sharpened by glass,
and they just ram them into Jacinto. The first one goes right into his armpit,
which has a boatload of nerves, and we really feel that one.

MO: I once had to get stitches under my arm
after I fell on a wine-rack. Trust me, I felt it.

LG: And as much as we hate the guy, it’s
painful to watch. And we think about the acts that these children have been
driven to, even though they’re doing it to save their own lives.

MO: And it’s a tribute to all of their fallen
friends like Santi, who was murdered by this bastard.

LG: But what’s important is that it’s their
version of a war trauma - they’ll have to live with this for the rest of their
lives, and as they go off into the desert to try to find shelter, it’s a very
uneasy ending.

MO: And Luppi’s narration as they go off
about ghosts being stuck in time, it’s a reminder that the horrors of the
Spanish Civil War will never fully disappear. Del Toro was born twenty or
thirty years after they ended and in Mexico, but it really matters to him to
capture the gravity of the situation.

LG: It was a very personal project for him.
He’s a very intellectual guy, he studied history very closely, and he was
always fascinated by the Spanish Civil War. He views it as a period of history
that we’ve forgotten about completely. Europe mostly ignored it because they
were trying to stay neutral, and when Europe did get dragged into war, they
were too busy to deal with Spain.

MO: One minor qualm I have about the climax
of the film- when Jacinto is dispatched with and thrown into the pool, Santi
attacks him, and he can’t escape because he’s weighed down by gold. It’s just a
bit much for me.

LG: And it’s not even enough gold for me to
believe that he couldn’t overcome that, even with his injuries. But, eh, I’ll
go with it. It’s a very minor thing in an extremely strong film.

MO: Oh, yeah, it’s minor. It’s not like I
could think of a way to improve it, it’s his choices that have weighed him down
and taken him into a monster without humanity. The symbol only slightly bothers
me.

LG: I give it an A.

MO: A- from me, but it’s a high A-.

Devil's
Backbone is available
for streaming on iTunes, Vudu, Amazon and Xbox live. It comes out on Criterion
Collection DVD and Blu-ray at the end of July, at which point it will likely be
available on Hulu+ along with the bulk of the collection.